I have some very mixed feelings about this book. It was surprisingly easy and quick to read and the plotline was really interesting. And there were engaging parts to the book.

If the world in this book had been revealed to be a form of purgatory, I think it would have made a bit more sense. There were very few ‘different’ characters – with very few exceptions, every member of a particular class or group was portrayed as being exactly the same.

I did find Jasel and Pain to be interesting characters, even if they weren’t all that heroic. There were a lot of really disturbing scenes in this book as well… very graphic ones, many of which I felt were gratuitous.

Seeing Mars and Venus was interesting, but I wasn’t really sure exactly what had happened with them and the rest of the pantheon. I was disappointed to see that Mars was made the villain in this, again. Mars/Ares and Hades are often portrayed as evil in fiction. Solexer was an interesting character, but there wasn’t enough detail given about him through the book.

I felt that Venus stayed more true to her mythical personality than Ares did, although it was good to see that there were some pretty obvious elements even in Ares’ case.

I spent a lot of this book wondering exactly which characters were ‘real’. There was a lot of unnecessary, graphic sex and violence that I felt wasn’t necessary. Because of all that, I found my attention wandering, particularly through the whole films sequence.

If the book had been less disjointed and some of the characters more likable, I probably would have found it readable. As it is, I don’t think I’d read a sequel to this book.